Colin Basterfield graduated from The Hagley Writer’s Institute in 2011 with a stage play, poetry and short stories. He moved to Wellington in 2012, to continue his education in creative writing at Victoria University and Wellington High School, as well as improvisation with the Wellington Improvisation Troupe, and Open Mic poetry around town. He also has co-writing credits with the 48 Hour filmmaking team, Christchurch On Air. He’s since moved to Auckland, has recently completed a fresh poetry course, performed and currently waiting for a place on the Masters of Creative Writing 2015 at Auckland University.

In between the stars there be comets
They slide across the sky like silk over linoleum
Chalk the void where only dark matter tends to matter
A lifetime might not be enough to see their kind again
So we remember the day
Hale-Bopp brush-stroked our night
Kennedy took a bullet
Jeff Buckley’s boots filled with mud

But what of the comet’s tale?
Constituent parts of us
Composites beyond atoms, like Lego?
Where only imagination limits
Thought, love, compassion, creativity, beauty, morals, art, ethics
Does imagination limit dark matter?
And as a point of order
Without light, does dark matter really matter?
Among orders of matter
Is it a matter of order
Between light and dark matters?
Or is the order of what matters
Simply a matter of choice

When out there the universe is expanding in all directions
Everything is accelerating away from everything else
But how can that be when you’re standing right there
You’re so close your light arrives without delay
Yet when we turn away,
You too will recede,
Dressed in red shift
Perhaps to play another game
Of statues, on pedestals
As we shift to blue